EAST LONDON PRESS reporting on George Galloway's current appearances on the local paper and by a Commons EDM

EAST LONDON PRESS reporter
0330 updated from 0250 GMT
London Wednesday 17 June 2009

Council's part in destroying public sector control of housing...
what should happen in the future.

Bethnal Green and Bow MP George Galloway’s RESPECT group members, Galloway’s own assistants and some named councillors associated with the MP, have been receiving favourable coverage lately in the East London Advertiser.

This is noticeably bigger than anything local groups who are not affiliated to any political party are getting. Mr Galloway has tabled what is called an Early Day Motion about RSLs.

We examine this EDM and its context and show that Mr Galloway has not been associated with a movement of consistent campaigning pressure for housing rights and environmental civilisation in Tower Hamlets. We shall be looking at other aspects of this in future reports. Now we look at the EDM and also examine the role of the RESPECT group on Tower Hamlets Council. ''


EDM 1657 ACCOUNTABILITY OF REGISTERED SOCIAL LANDLORDS11.06.2009 Galloway, George That this House notes that the Government and councils have encouraged tenants and leaseholders to vote to transfer out of council ownership to private housing associations, known as Registered Social Landlords (RSLs); further notes that many residents, despite lavish bribes to transfer have voted against transfer to RSLs; further notes that this policy of stock transfer has now been abandoned, for example, in Tower Hamlets in the face of public opposition; that residents who are now living under many of the RSLs are extremely unhappy over charges and services; further notes that the list of RSLs with which there is the greatest dissatisfaction includes Swan Housing Association, Old Ford Housing Association, One Housing Group and East End Homes; and believes that it is essential that legislation is brought forward urgently to make these private housing associations more accountable directly to the residents and to the councils within which they fall. Signatures( 2) Standard Order Party Groups Alphabetical Order Party Totals Status Open signatures All signatures Galloway, George Hancock, Mike ''

EAST LONDON PRESS:

Now look at the contradiction:


The EDM says this ‘it is essential that legislation is brought forward urgently to make these private housing associations more accountable directly to the residents and to the councils within which they fall. ' Yet at the beginning of the EDM, it says, '' Government and councils have encouraged tenants and leaseholders to vote to transfer out of council ownership to private housing associations ''

The facts are that the transfer of publicly owned housing stock could not happen without active complicity by the councils. So the record of the councils who have created the problem shows that councils cannot be allowed to be the custodians of the right.

The evidence of the past 100 years of the role of local councils shows that something more than mere council power is required. Without such a core ingredient in the future, what the EDM is doing is giving the very perpetrators an excuse or pretext or licence, to assert the same abusing powers again. The history of the Defend Council housing 'movement' of the past few years shows that local communities have not been actively engaged.

It is true that where parts of the communities have been engaged, they have responded mostly with a NO to transfer.

But then once a voting occasion has passed, the communities have been left unaddressed and unengaged by the campaign leaders. Just as the marginal groupings at local elections have done. Why have the local communities been left unengaged in a sustained sense?

The first crucial point is that because most of the leaders of the Defend Council housing campaign have been nu arrivals. Almost like nu labour. And they have behaved like nu labour.

As far as their attitude to ordinary people in east London goes. And the result has been very predictable. There is nothing in the texts of the George Galloway EDM or in the sympathetic coverage of it by the East London Advertiser so far to say that there is a grassroots movement against the treacherous behaviour of the Council on housing rights in the East End.

The lone figure of Carole Swords, who has been genuinely active against Council housing stock transfer policies in the past, and who is known to be a member of George Galloway’s Tower Hamlets-based Respect organisation, will not be enough to mobilise the majority of the people.


This is so because the 'parties', including 'Respect' councillors have been absent in real terms from the main forum of the local Council on this issue as on the others. What is meant by ‘absent’ here?


The word means that the councillors concerned have not made a strong case that has been felt by the Council’s majority. This week's published details that Tower Hamlets Respect councillors' group leader Abjol Miah has been involved in the controversial appointment of Lutfor Rahman Ali to assistant chief executive post in Tower Hamlets Council serves to prove the point that in real agenda, there is no alternative to the Labour Party on Tower Hamlets Council.

This is a reference to the current issue of PRIVATE EYE.

Not that there is any shortage of claims as BEING alternatives. But the behaviour shows that there is none.

Not so far.

Not among the sitting or standing councillors. And this is the case even before we examine the fact that Oliur Rahman, Rania Khan, Lutfa Begum, Shahed Ali, W. Islam have left the Respect group within the period of the first term following their election as Respect councillors.

What does that say about the ‘Respect’ ‘party’?

Is it DISSrespect, as Michael Keith called it through some of his ‘Bengali’ badge-bearers in Shadwell on polling day in May 2006?


Or is it Respect, with dignity, as George Galloway was proclaiming it to be on the same day and in the same hour across the road in Philpot Street, off the Commercial Road, London E1?


There is no way that RESPECT group can deliver anything to the voters if its ‘leaders’ on the Council behave in the way that they have done thus far. By behaviour we are referring to the behaviour consistent with the advancement of a political agenda through constitutional means within the acceptable parameters of a local council like Tower Hamlets. SUCH behaviour has NOT been evident in whatever the Respect group of councillors have been doing on that Council.

It is acknowledged that they are attending meetings and also even making comments.

But they are not doing so anywhere near sufficiently. Let alone strongly. We do NOT suggest that raising voice necessarily amounts to strength. And it appears that ALL of them are or have been leaders!

If not in their official agreements then at least in their unofficial estimations of themselves and their mini and sub-cliques. How significant is Mr Galloway’s EDM then? Not very, if the number of signatories is anything to go by. So far there is only one other signatory to it apart from Mr G Galloway himself. But then that is not important. Not as important as Mike Brooke on the local East London Advertiser.

Mr Brooke who is appearing to be the new Ted Jeory.

He fancies himself as the new king maker on the East London political scene. And Mr Galloway’s group has been receiving more positive coverage in the circulation losing East London Advertiser than any other group with similar numerical presence.

The point of all the coverage, like Mr Galloway’s EDM in relation to the MPs, is that it is passing most East Londoners by! And this is tending to show that despite the many items of EXCLUSIVE carried by the East London Advertiser allegedly revealing the truth and bringing new insights into Tower Hamlets democracy surrounding the RESPECT organisation, the reality is that the entity is not making any difference on major issues.


This is not likely to change for the better for the people because the self-styled daily newspaper of the British left, the Morning Star decides to recognise a woman looking almost like a traditional Muslim.

The contents of the piece is forever unmistakably similar to the Morning star’s agenda.

It is ignorant. It is artificial and it is not of the grassroots. What is true of inner city Birmingham in that diabolical display by the Morning Star is also true about Tower Hamlets? On BOTH counts, the people have not been shown any traceable respect. Without that happening, the paper tigers of the sinking type of the East London Advertiser or the desperate, and very solidly racistly Stalinist type of the Morning Star will not scare the real power wielders on the Council and in much of Tower Hamlets away.